By Sumayya
Adedoyin Omotara started the Unmask group for a single reason.
“As just one person, you can move quickly, but as a group of people working together, you can travel a long way,” Omotara told CTV News on Saturday from the Best Western Hotel in the northeast part of Calgary, where she set up the 11th Unmask Conference. The gathering brought together close to 300 Black workers, independent creators, business owners, and neighborhood leaders.
“It is a group of women joining together to truly speak about creating a stronger sense of self, creating more power in business, growing stronger in our jobs, and basically growing stronger in our personal images,” said Omotara. The gathering included main speeches, cozy group talks, meeting new people, live music, and spoken poems.
An event planner named Banke Tolu-Orinola has taken part in four Unmask conferences. She stated that they are completely motivating.
“It offers you that bravery to understand that you can achieve anything,” she said. “You know, if someone else can do this, then I can do this too!”
A person who went to the meeting, Odinaka Ezekeke, said the event gave her a chance to find out how to move her job to a higher position.
“I am able to see many women who have already achieved success, and how did they reach that point?” Ezekeke asked. “So many times you have these massive plans, and you might think that it is impossible or too distant for you to reach.
“But when you look at someone who has truly accomplished it, you get to discover what steps did I take or what steps did they take to arrive where they are today. It simply makes it feel much more possible that you can accomplish it as well, right?”
